Town Square

Eshoo to host Saturday meeting on gun control

Original post made
on Apr 19, 2013

The topic of gun legislation, and the Senate's failure this week to pass a bill to strengthen the nation's gun laws, will be the subject of a Saturday community meeting hosted by U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo in Palo Alto.

Posted by Wo\'O Ideafarm
a resident of another community
on Apr 20, 2013 at 3:38 pmWo\'O Ideafarm is a registered user.

Will someone please stand up and give these paternalistic female (sic) politicians a reminder that the mission statement of both our federal government and the State of California is TO KEEP US FREE.

Government's job is to keep us free, not to keep us safe. If you want to be safe, raise your children properly. If you want to be safe, reprioritize your life to put the children at the top of your list. Not just YOUR children. ALL children.

A woman's place is in the village. A man's place is to be hunted, and to hunt.

Posted by Wo\'O Ideafarm
a resident of another community
on Apr 21, 2013 at 9:11 amWo\'O Ideafarm is a registered user.

There are two ways to interpret the constitutional right of the people of the United States "to bear arms". The "collective interpretation" is that the people IN COMMUNITY have the right to form, train, provision, and equip militias and to maintain battle readiness, in order to deter crime by government. The "individual interpretation" is that the people INDIVIDUALLY have the right to arm themselves to defend against crime by private persons.

The latter interpretation raises the issue of crime prevention. The former interpretation raises the issue of the fundamental allocation of coercive power between the State and the People. In the United States, organic law empowers the People to take direct action by forming militias to revolt against a government that has encroached upon or outright repudiated the Constitution.

AFAIK, the U.S. Supreme Court has intentionally avoided determining whether the Constitutional right "to bear arms" is a community right or an individual private person right.

IMO, all of the discussions about which weapons to control or ban miss the constitutional point. The important question is whether the population is to be empowered or disarmed. If empowered, we need to find a way to restore the population's worthiness to be entrusted with lethal force. If disarmed, we need to find a way to restore THE GOVERNMENT'S worthiness to be so entrusted.

Either way, we have a problem. Either way, the solution is for society to reaffirm that the primary function of society, community, and each and every adult individual is to raise up the children into good, strong adult men and women.

To do that, we need to reaffirm the critical leading role that is played by the family. By "family" I mean a provider and protector husband / father, a nurturing wife / mother who is focused on managing and administrating the family and integrating it into the community by connecting it with other families, and children who know right from wrong, accept responsibility for their own actions, and respect the authority of the parents, teachers, police officers, ministers, and other adults to whom the community entrusts them.

Posted by Otto Maddox
a resident of Monta Loma
on Apr 22, 2013 at 7:55 am

If a police officer feels the need to have an AR-15, a shotgun, and a pistol to drive around the streets of Mountian View why shouldn't I have that same option?

After all the police carry those weapons to protect THEMSELVES. The police have no obligation or duty to protect individuals. None. The courts have rules on this many times. An individual has no expectation or right to protection provided by the State. We are supposed to protect ourselves.

But at the same time the Government wants to limits our options about how we can protect ourselves and others.

So I'll take the same weapons a police officer chooses thank you. If they think they need an AR-15 I do too.

What shining examples of precisely why we need to control the guns in our country! An AR-15 - or whatever the heck stupid names these things have - to drive around MV? One poster above has a history of criminally violent behavior too! Bill of rights, freedom - the right to get shot while learning your ABCs, the freedom to wear a bullet proof vest to the movies.